David Goffin blasts ‘ridiculous’ French Open crowd: ‘It’s becoming football … someone spat their chewing gum at me’

Fans can often turn the usually quiet Roland Garros courts into a wild arena when a French player needs backing and Goffin was subjected to the experience on Tuesday afternoon.

On a raucous Court 14, Goffin kept his cool to defeat wild card Perricard 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-3, before the former world number seven held his hand to his ears as he left the venue to loud jeers.

“When you are insulted for 3½ hours, you have to tease the public a little,” Goffin said. “Clearly, it goes too far, it’s total disrespect. It’s really too much. It’s becoming football, soon there will be smoke bombs, hooligans and fights in the stands. It’s starting to become ridiculous. Some people are there more to cause trouble than to create an atmosphere. Someone spat out their chewing gum at me. It [the match] was getting complicated. That’s why I wanted to stay calm. If I started to get angry about it, it could have destabilised me.”

Goffin urged the organisers of the year’s second Grand Slam to take action.

“A lot of people are complaining, a lot of umpires feel that there is a lot of disrespect,” Goffin added. “This is repeated a lot in the locker room and among the ATP authorities. We’re going to have to do something about that.

“I think it only happens in France. At Wimbledon, obviously, there’s not that. Or in Australia either. At the US Open, it’s still rather quiet. Here, it’s a really unhealthy atmosphere.”

Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz reached the third round yesterday but suffered a worrying loss of form midway through his match against Dutch qualifier Jesper de Jong before winning 6-3, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2.

The third seed was forced to work hard for a two-set lead under the Court Philippe Chatrier roof, but 176th-ranked De Jong refused to be intimidated and extended the match as Alcaraz suffered a third-set slump.

Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur beat Colombia’s Camila Osorio 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 in a roller-coaster match in humid conditions under the roof on Court Suzanne-Lenglen to move into the third round.

Jabeur hardly put a foot wrong in the opening set but she allowed Osorio to get back into the match with a poor second-set performance before raising her intensity in the third to secure the win.

Defending champion Iga Swiatek was pushed to the brink by fellow four-times Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka but secured a 7-6(1) 1-6 7-5 victory after saving a match point in a high-voltage second-round match at Roland Garros.

Top seed Swiatek’s clay prowess makes her a firm favourite against anyone, but the 22-year-old, who entered the contest on the back of 13 wins and titles in Madrid and Rome, faced huge pressure and was a point away from dropping the first set.

In testing conditions under the roof on Philippe Chatrier, the powerful Osaka posed problems in one of her best matches since coming back this year from a maternity break but did not capitalise while up 40-30 at 5-4, hitting a shot long.

Three-times champion Swiatek raised her level and ran away with the opening set in the tiebreak, but the Pole found herself trailing 4-0 in the next set as the 26-year-old Osaka shrugged off any disappointment to comfortably level the contest.

Osaka saved two break points to hold at the start of the decider and fired a sublime backhand crosscourt winner in the next game to pounce for a 2-0 lead, which the Japanese player extended on serve after another almighty battle.

A rattled Swiatek clawed her way back from 5-2 down and saved a match point before taking full advantage of late errors from a nervy Osaka’s racket to complete a famous victory and avoid her earliest exit from the Grand Slam.